Arthur C. Clarke 1/9 ART MATRIX - LIGHTLINK
http://www.lightlink.com/theproof
Ithaca, NY 14850 USA
(607) 277-8913 Fax
(607) 277-0959 Voice
(607) 227-5465 Cell
homer@lightlink.com E-mail
jes@lightlink.com E-mail
07/14/06 12:59am
Dear Revered Sir,
This is Homer Smith and Jane Staller from Art Matrix.
We are the fractal people that you so kindly mentioned in your book
involving the Mandelbrot Set. We are now running Lightlink Internet out
of Ithaca NY. No money in fractals, but competing against Time Warner
and Verizon for broadband internet out of our homes isn't easy either.
At least we are still here.
I also need to thank you for the utterly beautiful music of Rohan
DeLivra, we used it multiple times in the video which now exists on DVD.
I remember back in 1985 you made a comment to me that you hoped to
see the year 2001, and I trust you have done so with flying colors, and
are still alive and well.
It saddens me the terrible tragedy that befell Sri Lanka this last
year, but I know you will be pushing to enhance the scientific knowledge
of our world, and to motivate people to spend their attention on matters
of importance rather than religious bigotry and war with each other.
If I might presume on you, I have a matter of some import that I
wish to publish to the world, but having spent 30 years on it and seen
great resistence in the average mind to the material, including trained
scientists, it has occured to me that you might be the one to first
share this with.
Your healthy skepticism of pseudo science and other new age crystal
gazing nonsense, along with your strong background in actual science
indicates to me you might be very interested in this.
This material will go into broad public issue within the year or
so, I intend to get it into the hands of all the people of the planet,
in the hopes that someone, somewhere will be able to understand it and
help me know whether it is nonsense or not.
However I would be greatly honored to have you preview it and give
me your considered opinion which I would value greatly, before I make a
fool out of myself on a planetary scale.
The subject matter under review is about consciousness, in
particular consciousness's capacity for perfect certainty of its own
existence, a matter which is skipped over or ignored in all of the
scientific literature that I have come across in my life time.
Scientists seem to think they can find the Ultimate Theory of
Everything by mathematics and space time mechanics alone, that is
through operation of Matter, Energy, Space, Time and Force.
But I tend to think that "Love and Shame can not of Force and Mass
be made."
It is this process of perfect certainty that runs into real trouble
when one tries to explain it with spacetime mechanics.
A machine is defined as any system of parts interacting via cause
and effect across a spacetime distance.
The paper I wish to publish is essentially a proof (that everyone
will agree with) that perfect certainty can not be had by a machine, not
even of its own existence.
Machines learn by being an effect, they change state as a result of
some alleged exterior cause. From this change in state IN THEMSELVES
they then theorize and compute back to the possible nature of that cause
in some other thing they presume caused it.
But effects do not prove cause, thus any effort to determine the
nature or existence of a cause from looking only at effects is frought,
both scientifically and philosophically.
Any attempt to determine the specific cause of an effect is all
theory and forever must remain so, no matter how well the theory
'works'.
Since effects do not prove cause, a machine that can learn only by
being an effect, can never learn with perfect certainty if there even
was a cause!
One can not prove the existence or nature of any cause with perfect
certainty by proffering that cause's effects as one's only evidence.
Further, "present state does not prove prior state," thus a machine
can't even tell with perfect certainty that it has changed state, so it
can't tell if it has been an effect or not.
A machine can be built to trust that it has changed state, and can
trust that all effects are caused, but only if it has been told to do
so, and trust is not continuously reverifiable perfect certainty, which
is the hallmark of conscious self awareness.
Specifically a machine can not be certain of distance, time, change
in state, cause or the existence of itself or anything else. Those are
the big 5, but the last one existence, covers everything!
Thus one concludes that a machine can't be certain of anything.
And that is because learning across a distance with certainty
is impossible.
Since consciousness IS capable of perfect certainties of various
kinds (which many will not agree with) including certainty of its own
existence and personal agency, one is forced to conclude that
consciousness is not a space time machine nor merely a process in one,
such as the body or its brain.
A formal statement of the proof, namely that a machine can't be
certain of anything, is at the end of this letter.
The ramifications of this simple line of thought are astounding.
The idea that machines can not be certain of anything is well
known, but the idea that consciousness can be perfectly certain of some
things, well, it would seem that many people aren't certain they exist
or that they can see two different colors.
I trust they are merely sleep walking while they work. :)
Difference implies existence.
You can't BE different and not BE.
Something can BE red, and not Be.
The white paper I would send you covers this thing from beginning
to end, it is very easy to understand, any 5th grader could comprehend
it and teach it to every other kid in his class in no time.
Its the physics PhD's that I worry about.
Thank you for your time and attention.
Homer Wilson Smith homer@lightlink.com, 607 227 5465
Jane Elizabeth Staller jes@lightlink.com, 607 227 5466
(Our hours are 2pm to 2am EST every day.)
Below is a formal statement of the
THE MACHINE CERTAINTY THEOREM (THE "PROOF").
"Learning implies Learning with Certainty or Learning with Not
Certainty.
Learning across a space time distance implies Learning by Being
an Effect.
Learning by Being an Effect implies not Learning with Certainty.
Learning with Certainty, therefore,
implies Learning, but
not by Being an Effect, and
not across a space time distance.
From "Learning, Certainty, Causality and Consciousness"
Copyright (C) 2006 Homer W. Smith
Yours in good faith,
Homer Wilson Smith Jane Elizabeth Staller
homer@lightlink.com jes@lightlink.com
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Homer Wilson Smith The Paths of Lovers Art Matrix - Lightlink
(607) 277-0959 KC2ITF Cross Internet Access, Ithaca NY
homer@lightlink.com In the Line of Duty http://www.lightlink.com
Fri Aug 10 01:02:10 EDT 2007